The Met Gala 2026: Everything we know about ‘fashion’s biggest night’

Stars from across the worlds of fashion and entertainment will soon don their most outrageous outfit on the red carpet for one of fashion’s biggest nights of the year: The Met Gala.

Year after year, stars line up to showcase their most avant-garde looks to the biggest names in fashion. Who could forget Rhianna’s gorgeous canary yellow cape as she trailed across the red carpet in 2015? Or Kim Kardashian’s black Balenciaga catsuit in 2021, which concealed her entire face and body.

Tonight’s event will be streamed live across Vogue’s digital platforms, including YouTube and TikTok. If you’re in the UK, you will be able to start watching from 11pm.

Ashley Graham, Cara Delevigne, and La La Anthony will acts as comperes during tonight’s Gala, while Emma Chamberlain will be on duty once again as Vogue’s red carpet correspondent.

The Met Gala is officially titled the Costume Institute Benefit and it is widely considered to be “fashion’s biggest night”, organised each year by Vogue magazine.

The Gala raises money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses the fashion world’s much-loved Costume Institute. The event marks the opening of the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition, paying homage to fashions both past and present.

The Gala was first held as a society event in 1948 just three years after the end of the Second World War.

Since then, it has transformed from a society dinner into one of the biggest cultural events in the world, with some stars showing just how far fashion boundaries can be pushed.

The fashion fundraiser is co-chaired by former Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour, who stepped down from her role at Vogue last year after 37 years, as well as best-selling artist Beyonce, Hollywood star Nicole Kidman and tennis champion Venus Williams.

With a few rare exceptions, the Met Gala is always held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as the museum’s biggest annual fundraiser.

All monies raised from the Gala will go to the museum’s Costume Institute, allowing it the artistic and financial freedom to hold exhibitions, create publications and acquire startling fashion pieces for its collection.

The event tonight (Monday, May 4) boasts the theme, ‘Fashion is Art’ and will also mark Beyonce’s first appearance in a decade. She last stepped on to the carpet in 2016 for Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology theme.

Each year, Dame Anna also handpicks a group of celebrities to help launch the museum’s latest exhibition as part of the Met Gala Host Committee, with Yves Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello and actress Zoe Kravitz chosen as this year’s co-chairs of the committee.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez Bezos are also co-chairs of the Met Gala and sponsors of the event. Other members include popstar Sabrina Carpenter, US rapper Doja Cat and One Battle After Another star Teyana Taylor.

A spokesman previously said the dress code invited guests to express “their own relationship to fashion as an embodied art form” and to “celebrate the countless depictions of the dressed body throughout art history”.

A few headline-making moments in recent years include singer Rihanna embracing the 2018 theme Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination and arrived in a Maison Margiela jewel-encrusted mini dress, matching coat and a papal mitre.

The outfit was widely praised for its commitment to the brief, but also drew criticism from some who viewed the religious references as inappropriate and by some as blasphemous.

Meanwhile in 2021 reality TV star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian arrived for the In America: A Lexicon of Fashion theme dressed in a black tight-fitting Balenciaga bodysuit that covered her entire body and face.

The look forced people to focus on her silhouette – and she made headlines for being instantly recognised.

After the Met Gala, the museums’ spring exhibition, Costume Art, will be on view from May 10 – marking the opening of the nearly 12,000-square-foot galleries adjacent to the Great Hall. The proceeds from the Gala provide the Costume Institute with its primary source of annual funding.